


Power and Glory

by Hello_Spikey



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-28
Updated: 2008-03-27
Packaged: 2019-06-14 04:52:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15381039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Spikey/pseuds/Hello_Spikey
Summary: An expansion of theSpike's Bad Day: Glory, Glorydrabble.This is the Glory-tortures-Spike fic I promiseddreamsofspike!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamsofspike](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsofspike/gifts).



> Warning: I get down into the gruesome some!
> 
> Why yes, I AM having a happy birthday! *preens* (Seriously, the well-wishes have been burying! I've never gotten so many. Y'all are darlings!)
> 
> So I've been putting off posting because I'm in the grip of a perennial "Everything I Write Is Crap" funk, but after chocolate cake and all, eh, here goes!

Spike got a glimpse of them – the scoobies, coming to the rescue, even Harris, brave little soldier with ax in hand jumping in from the sunshine. He closed his eyes, smelling the stale carpet in the elevator, and waited for it to be over, finally able to let fatigue claim him. Slayer’d come to rescue him. What unexpected grace. Long as the God-bitch didn’t get them.

He heard the fighting, grunts, and someone calling his name. He started to crawl toward it, then. Time to go.

Spike felt himself jerked upright by small, rough hands.

“You do NOT insult Glory by escaping!” the toad-faced minion scolded him.

He turned his head away from the fetid breath to see Glory flinging bodies. Flinging… no!

The proud goddess stomped through the lobby of her apartment house in her high heels, barely bending to pick Xander up by the scruff of his neck and tossing him through the window. Through it, Christ! The whelp couldn’t take much of that! “You little vermin!” Glory said. “Ew. Get out.” Buffy scrambled to pick Xander up, Willow holding him already, they ran, cradling arms around their weak, vulnerable pal.

“Well!” Glory kicked one high-heel after the retreating slayer, “That was FUN.” She turned and sashayed over to where her acolytes were gathering Spike onto his feet. “Which is sarcasm, by the way.” She took hold of Spike’s chin, squeezing it in her vice-like grip. “Precious! I guess you’re pretty important after all, to have the slayer and her little pals come and get their asses kicked. That make you feel all loved and wanted?” She flung his chin from her grip. He felt a bone creak in response. “Kiddies, let’s get precious back upstairs. And no more chains on hooks.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and smiled at the body being dragged behind her, almost coy. “We’ll put the hooks right through him this time.”

Bugger. He had no strength left to flee. His vision was blurry and red on the edges. He let his head fall loose between his shoulders, the top of his feet drag on the carpet. Let the scabby munchkins do all the work.

Glory took her time. Ordered him placed like a painting. “No, a little to the left. No, your other left, moron. That’s it… now he’s leaning right. Well fix it! Good, good. A little more to the right. I want my precious under direct lighting. There, isn’t he pretty?”

She stalked across the room on her strappy heels like she was sauntering down a runway. Something jingled in her loose fist. “Murk, put through the first hook before he slips and we have to do this all over again!”

Spike renewed his struggles, which, in hindsight, was pretty stupid. The hook tore going in to his skin, separating flesh between the bones of his forearm. Two pairs of grimy, surprisingly strong little hands started squeezing and twisting his arm against the wall. Blood tickled down his underarm. Bones creaked and ground against metal, and plaster dust fell.

“This isn’t working, your most effervescent and magnificent one. We should place the hooks in the wall, then place the vampire.”

“Jinx, you’re so clever!” Glory put her hands on the minion’s face and he beamed beatifically at her. She slapped him and he stumbled. “Do I have to think of everything around here? Get a pencil.”

It was a strange form of torture, being a home furnishing, and Spike used what moments of self-possession he had to mock them at it. “No you knob, I’m much prettier facing south. You’re using brass hooks in a chrome-trimmed vampire. What would Martha Stewart say?”

There were moments of blackout that became longer and longer. He woke up not remembering the last hooks, enumerating them now by feel: Two through his forearms, two through his upper arms, two cupping the bottom of his shoulder blades, one hooked through a floating rib below that and one off-set through nothing but flesh below that.

Each place felt swollen, cartoon-huge., save that one flesh-only hook, that felt like a wet hole. The rest of his body must have been nothing but taffy stretched between those monuments of hurt. He mistakenly tried to breathe, at first, just a gasp, and the shift ripped through him in fresh agony.

Most of his weight hung from his arms, which were stretched out horizontally. He could wriggle his fingers, but it pulled like razor-wire along his bones to do so. He was too high off the floor to kneel, but only just, his legs bent to the side, just an afterthought tied together at the ankle like the unwanted stems on a floral arrangement.

This is it, William, he thought to himself, you are once and for all truly fucked.

Sunlight streamed into the room, hitting the wall opposite. The window was near him, but the sunlight likely wouldn’t reach. How bloody considerate.

He heard a door shut and stiffened, which only caused more pain. He bounced his head against the wall in gentle self-admonishment. FUCK it hurt, and his lungs burned for air – idiot lungs.

Spike was very, very surprised when a young man walked into the room wearing scrubs.

The young man looked equally surprised to find Spike there.

He ran his hands through his hair, pointed at Spike, and said, “I can’t deal with this before coffee.”

Spike widened his eyes, and when that didn’t get the bloke’s attention – he in fact just sighed and walked on into the kitchen, Spike took in a breath to shout at him. The pain choked him, making the intake of air sound like a wail. “Oy!’ he gasped, “Get a fucker down!”

The young man returned, shook his head, crossed back to the bedroom. From the kitchen came the smell of brewing coffee.

Then he returned and set a tackle box on the floor next to Spike’s knees. “One minute,” he said, and went back into the kitchen.

Way WAY longer than was really necessary, he came back with a coffee mug in hand and sipped it, looking at him. “You should be dead,” he said, conversationally, and flicked his fingers back and forth, indicating all there was to see of Spike’s state. “That’s at least a quart of blood on the floor and wall, to start.” He crouched down and poked Spike in the chest. The single, none-too-hard push radiated pain and the vampire groaned. “Secondly you’re not breathing. In fact, I’d guess that the pressure from your arms supporting your weight should be making it very difficult to breathe.” The young man had a very clinical eye, sweeping back and forth. “So… I want to help you, but this makes me a little leery. What are you?”

Spike grunted another breath. “C…cut me down, pillock.”

“Okay,” the young man rocked back on his heels. “You’re British. That’s something. Are you…” he waved his hands helplessly, obviously unable to come right out and ask if he was a vampire. “Did Glory do this? Why am I asking, of course it was Glory. Another mess for me to clean up.”

The man noticed something of Spike’s expression then, and set his hand with professional care on Spike’s right wrist. “I’m Ben. Promise me you won’t hurt me if I let you down?”

Spike hastily nodded.

“I don’t have to tell you, this is going to hurt.” Ben bit his lower lip and carefully lifted Spike’s wrist, up, back, and off the first hook. (The second dug around, scraping bone as the arm moved in a painfully near parody of the motion actually needed to get the second hook out as well.)

Spike’s vision blurred and dimmed, and he almost begged the fucker to stop, but Ben moved on to the next hook, and there was a fleshy sound as it slid out of him. He moved closer to the wall, peering between it and Spike, prodding with his fingers and hissing his breath in appreciation for the gory sight. “Wish I could tell somebody about this. It would beat the hell out of Dave’s pustule-lancing story. Okay, I’m going to lift up on your shoulder here. Try and get your knees under you because if this works, you’re going to drop. It’ll be best if you catch yourself because if you drop too far I don’t know what it’ll do to your other arm.”

Spike gasped half a breath and managed to choke out, “You’re a regular Florence Nightingale.”

“We boy nurses never get tired of being compared to girls,” Ben muttered, positioning Spike’s freed arm over his own shoulder and sliding his hand carefully between the vampire and the wall.

“STOP!”

Murk stood in the arch-way to Glory’s large bedroom. He hurried forward, nearly tripping on his trailing robes. “The Ben must not upset the great Glorificus’ possessions!”

Ben muttered a curse under his breath and shifted his position to face more into the room. “You little freaks are supposed to stay away when I’m here!”

“I forgot my prayer-flail,” Murk said, touching his chest reverently. “You will leave the vampire in place. We spent hours getting him just so. Don’t you think the blood stains on the wall resemble wings? And the skin is so close to the wall color – bone white. Jinx and I spent hours getting the blood off his front so he would contrast nicely.”

Ben made a disgusted noise. His hand hadn’t stopped moving, wriggling around the lowest of the hooks in Spike’s back. “Since Glory isn’t… ugh… exactly in a position to… huh…” he got the first hook out. Spike’s side was gripped in a spasm immediately. Ben’s other hand quickly gripped his ribs, stilling the quake somewhat as his fingers crept forward, slipping bloody against the next hook. “To threaten ME,” Ben said, smiling with confidence as he shifted closer to the vampire, “So I’m going to just do what I want and leave you guys to her godly wrath.” With a grunt, he lifted Spike off the last of the hooks in his back.

Spike twisted to get his knees fully under him, but they were numb, hitting the ground did nothing at all to his momentum. There was a ripping sound and a pop of his left shoulder dislocating. Ben hurried to get in front of him, to get a better grip under both arms.

The last two hooks were nearly ripped out of his left arm and he was slowly lowered to the floor. He meant to get his legs under him, to stay upright, but he folded like paper, head hitting the plush carpet with a dull thunk

The brown-robed midget fretted and fussed, stepping back and forth and running its little brown hands all over itself. “This isn’t good. The Goddess will be most displeased.”

Spike rocked, felt the welcome contact of clean bandages on his back, heard medical tape being drawn out and cut. “Thanks, mate,” he said into the carpet.

“Try not to breathe. You’re… there’s blood still flowing. We… damn, I don’t know what you do for undead lungs.”

Spike couldn’t help but chuckle at that, though behind him Ben pressed hard on his back in panic, seeing bubbles rise up from a deep gash.

“I’m late for work. Look, there’s a first aid kit here, do you see?”

Spike let his head be lifted and turned, he nodded, even though his vision was graying and he wouldn’t care if there was a transvestite fyarl demon there.

“I… shit, you’re a vampire. Just… just don’t make me regret this.”

Murk and Ben exchanged glances of mutual distaste as Ben hurried to the bathroom to wash his hands and finish getting ready for work.

Spike wanted to pass out. Blissfully pass out, now that he was on the floor and his lungs were working and the pain had reduced to an all-over throb. He heard the minion fluttering about, yammering to himself, or on the phone. That was a funny idea – demon priests on phones.

“C’mon, Spike. Escape first, rest later, you lucky bastard.” He crawled forward, elbows and knees to keep the pressure off his aching forearms – the humerus is thicker and sturdier than the ulna and that other one, point being, upper arms aren’t as bad. Though his biceps burned with each motion, feeling like the world’s largest bee-stings.

Carpet was shit too: sticky and rough on his elbows.

He made it to the foyer, was able to waddle two steps on blissfully smooth tile when the door opened in front of him and the bloody munchkin brigade flooded the room. It was downright humiliating how often he was losing fights to these little tossers, when he’d killed nastier demons blind drunk.

It wasn’t a fight more than a swim through grubby hands and marble floor tiles. He got at least one of the little twats hard in the face, knocking him clean out. He had enough time to chuckle in triumph before another of the bloody jawas kicked him in one of his back wounds and the sudden influx of pain tipped him into unconsciousness again.

***

“We should assume that Glory now knows Dawn is the key,” Giles said, with more calm than any of the rest of them could muster, resting his fingertips gently on the pages of the book spread before him on the counter.

“I say we cut and run like the weak little kittens we are,” Xander said, absently smoothing the bandage on the back of his right hand.

“Running sounds good,” Willow agreed. She and Tara exchanged nods.

Dawn leaned against the stairs to the restricted books section, her arms wrapped tight around her torso. She wasn’t meeting anyone’s gaze, though Buffy was looking at her more than anywhere else as she paced. “We could attack again. Maybe when she’s out. Do gods go out? We could…”

“Buffy,” Giles spoke her name like a benediction, touching her arms gently. “Glory has had Spike in her power for a full day now. Even if we assume he put up some token resistance…”

“We know bleach-boy sold us out.” Xander smacked his fists together. “Which is why I wonder why we’re doing the talking instead of the running.”

Willow frowned. “Maybe because the running thing might leave us all out and nowhere special when the scary hell-god finds us?”

Buffy seemed to collapse into Giles’ arms. “How do you defeat someone undefeatable?”

“Um, sorry?” Willow said.

“W-we were all thinking it,” Tara put her hand over Willow’s.

“She does have a habit of readily kicking our asses,” Xander said.

“She could have all manner of location abilities,” Anya said. “She could be able to teleport, too. Once she has the name of the key, she could do anything. Names have power.”

A deadly silence descended. Buffy pulled herself upright again and joined her sister on the ladder.

“Thank you, Anya, for the pep talk,” Giles said.

“I’m just being realistic. We should be focusing on protection spells, I think. Casting a circle of protection around the key – somewhere that isn’t the shop.”

“She hasn’t tried anything yet.”

Everyone turned to the quiet voice. Dawn raised her chin. “If she has all this power and knows who I am, why hasn’t she already come to get me?”

“To keep us guessing?” Willow asked, looking to Giles for confirmation.

“We should retreat,” Giles said at last. “Buffy, take Dawn back to your house. Try to maintain an appearance of normality. Tara, Willow, Anya and I will research and construct a circle of protection around the house.”

Xander stood up with a hand-clap. “Guess I’m on donut duty.”

“Hardly.” Giles said. “You will stay with Dawn.”

“Can I remind you now that I am squishy and possess no special powers?”

“We need all the help we can get, Xander. Against Glory’s strength, there’s little difference between the second you would last and the three seconds it took her to defeat Buffy.”

Xander waited until they were out of the shop and out of Giles’ earshot before saying, “I’M on guard duty? We’re screwed. Really, really screwed.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, you'll all hate me because this is short, but I thought I'd post it anyway and get on with the rotation!

“Well, you’re looking less decorative. UGH, and what is that smell?”

Spike peeled his eyes open – it felt that way, a light crusting stuck to his eyelids, making it an effort to glance up at the bitch who was becoming the bane of his existence.

One of the perfunctory toadies was bowing to her. “It is the blood, most succulent one. We will slave night and day to remove it. We will make the carpets like new, oh sweetly-smelling…”

“Yeah, do it.” Glory flicked the monk’s forehead with one finger. He stumbled back with the impact. “And clean up my vampire while you’re at it.”

“Yes, oh glorious one.”

Spike’s vision, already black around the edges, fuzzed into nothingness as the munchkin approached.

***

He awoke on a narrow bed, bandaged tightly and smelling astringent everywhere. They must have bathed him in the stuff. He managed half an inch of sitting up before the chains on his wrists caught him in white-hot flashes. He sighed and fell back. It was a pleasant enough room. There was a much marked-up calendar on the wall opposite him, and post-it notes scattered around it. “On call” and “standby” were written on most of them, with numbers.

Well, that was a puzzle to occupy one’s mind, if one were bored enough. Spike wasn’t.

***

“No. She is NOT using my bed for vampire storage!” Ben dropped his duffle inside the door to his small room. On the bed, the vampire looked up at him with, of all things, a smug expression.

“Well if it isn’t Mr. Orderly.”

Ben ran a hand through his hair in frustration and tried to just put his work things away as usual.

“If you’re so upset about it you could, oh, I don’t know, rescue me or something, you pillock.”

Ben put his ID in the tray on his dresser and put his scrubs in the laundry hamper. Then, out of tasks that didn’t involve disrobing, he faced the bed. “What are you to Glory? What does she want with you?”

The vampire raised one dark eyebrow. “I suppose she thinks I’m pretty. What’s she to you, then? Thought humans’d be a bit fragile for her tastes.”

Ben grabbed the manacles that were attached to his bed-frame and turned them over, ignoring the vampire’s indignant protests. “She probably has a key in her room,” he said, promptly releasing the cold, lifeless wrist.

How fair was it that his own apartment was more HER apartment than his? Glory’s lush bedroom with its wide vanity did, in fact, produce a variety of keys in a little mother-of-pearl tray.

Ben set the tray on the vampire’s stomach while he tried the keys. There was a clear patch of skin below the navel where Glory either decided she didn’t need to rip holes in him or just got bored.

The third key worked and Ben hurriedly gathered the keys as the vampire’s arms flopped carelessly to the bed, nearly upsetting the tray. “Now get out,” Ben said.

He returned from putting the tray back on Glory’s vanity to find the vampire still in his bed, albeit turned onto his side, rubbing his wrists. “Come on, out! Fly, be free!”

“Give the tortured-past-death a fuckin’ sec, yeah?”

The vampire started to roll forward then winced and shuddered.

Ben sighed and pushed him back. “Looks like vampires aren’t immune to physiology. Hold still. Where does it hurt?”

His response was a gasping laugh. “Where don’t it?”

There were still scraps of Ben’s previous bandaging sticking to the wounds on his sides. Would the wounds go septic? Could they? He dragged his trauma kit over to the bed and started cleaning. The vampire bled very little. If Ben wasn’t exhausted from working a double shift and anxious to get his bed and his life back from Glorificus’ ever encroaching needs, he might have been interested in the physiological differences.

As it was he just treated the wounds like he'd been taught on cadavers.

***

Spike clenched his teeth to keep from chewing Ben-the-orderly out about what a slow-ass time he was taking, dithering about with tweezers when all he needed was some good strong binding on his ribs so he could sit up right.

Suddenly, Ben fell forward, his weight on his hands against Spike’s chest. Spike’s ribs groaned. “Bastard! What’re you…?!”

“No, no, not now,” Ben moaned, and then… melted. Spike felt the heavy palms shrink, nails grow, knees narrow.

Glorificus blinked at him in confusion. She sat back on her heels, straddling Spike’s legs. “What the heck? Was little Ben macking on vampire?” She squeezed Spike’s thighs between her supernaturally strong knees and leaned down to study Spike’s face. “Kinky bastard. Didn’t think he had it in him. Guess he’s not panting after the slayer anymore.”

Spike jerked away from her, and suddenly his mind made a connection he hadn’t known he’d missed. “Ben… he was the stuffed shirt hitting on Buffy at that party.”

“Are you talking?” Glory smacked her fists hard into the pillow on either side of Spike’s head. “Because I don’t recall saying you could talk. I’m having a private reflection moment, here.”

“You’re Ben. Ben is you.” Spike couldn’t help an evil smirk. “Guess that’s why your ankles are so thick, eh, love?”

Glory’s cupid’s-bow mouth twisted into a little knot and she yanked Spike’s head up by his hair. “You really LIKE pain, don’t you, precious?”

Spike lifted his chin. “You haven’t begun to hurt me.”

Glory’s eyes widened in momentary shock, then a slow smile took over her face. “You really ARE precious, vampire. I just might keep you.”

“I’ll never tell you who the key is.”

“Please!” she slapped his chest, sending throbs of pain along his ribs. “Vampires don’t keep other people’s secrets in the face of certain torture. You have no idea who the key is.”

Spike gasped twice, quick, to cover his own smile. “Figured that out, did you?”

“Yeah. I suppose I should just kill you,” she pouted, considering, “but you are kind of cute, well, you were before I had to teach you a lesson.” Her fingernails lightly traced the edges of the wounds on his chest. “And I have to say, the sturdiness is a bonus. You have NO idea how fast guys die on me when I’m trying to torture them.”

“They probably can’t wait to get away from your fat, bloated face.”

Her nails dug in hard, eliciting a choked-off whimper. “That mouth of yours could be put to better use, though.”

“Not…” he gasped, drew a large breath, forced the whole sentence out: ”Not if you were the last _vaguely_ female-shaped hell god on the planet.”

“Still challenging me? Oh, baby, you really ARE precious.” She drew her fingernails down his chest, re-arranging broken skin into neat rows, shredding bandages. He arched under her. He grabbed her arms and pushed with all his might, vampire strength nothing but white, shaking knuckles against her smooth, unblemished skin.

She pivoted her forearms around his, then, and had his hands pressed against the headboard faster than the sound of his wrist breaking. “That almost hurt! Stubborn little bloodsucker!” She shifted her hips and smiled.

Leaning low over him, the incongruous polo shirt rough against his wounded flesh, she drew patterns on his flank with her fingernail, giggling with appreciation as he gasped and writhed. "You do suffer very pretty when you can keep your obnoxious trap shut. What do you say, Precious? Want to learn just how much you can take?"

“Oh great Glorificus!”

Glory tossed her head back with a groan. “When do I get _me_ time?”

“Forgive me, Oh great, magnanimous and beautiful…”

“Get to the point, Murk. We’re on a deadline.”

The minion bowed very deep. “We feel we may have found the key.”

Glory twisted fully around, oblivious to the strangled gasp of pain the vampire under her made. “For real this time?”

Murk smiled widely. “There is someone new, in the Slayer’s life. A gentle and pure young woman with pale hair. And the Slayer has erected a circle of protection around her! A witch follows her wherever she goes.”

“Well!” Glory smacked Spike’s chest in delight. It made a meaty noise. “Let’s go gather up my key.” She stood up. “But first… ugh. I’m in Ben clothes. Gotta freshen up. Send someone in to clean the vampire, hm? We just might be taking him home with us.”

Spike managed to get his weight on his still-functioning wrist. “Tara’s not the key!”

Glory rewarded him with one smirk. “Oh like YOU know.”

***

Tara and Willow had moved in to Buffy’s house, the better to tend to their magic circle. One or the other of them was almost always to be seen walking the perimeter, checking on the buried totems of carved azurite. (Aside from their use in the spell, Anya had made no bones about wanting them returned afterward.)

Xander was sleeping on the couch. None of them left the circle if they could help it.

“I feel like we’re in prison,” Tara said, wistfully pacing the protective line that, for convenience, bisected the back yard. “It’s kind of a pretty, domestic prison, but we still never go out.” She picked a fallen leaf off the arrangement of stones.

“My mom would be all over the symbolism,” Willow said, smiling in the quiet, down-turned way she had when talking about academic topics. “Women trapped in the home, the home as safety…”

“The evil hell-god on the loose.”

“Who is female, and hence a symbol of…” Willow tore a leaf to little bits in her lap, thinking. “Our regretfully abandoned more active, successful life?”

Tara pulled a face. “We have got to get out of here.”

“There’s a fair over by the college.”

“I’ll get my coat.”

Tara returned to the porch with coat in hand and gave Willow a smile tinged with a relief she was afraid to express, lest it burst like a soap bubble.

“This will be fun,” Willow said, taking her arm. “Besides, it’s not like either of US is the key.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this isn't the most polished thing I've ever written, but I'm still cackling to myself over one scene in particular.
> 
> Yeah... see, there was one thing I immediately thought of when I thought of pairing Glory and Spike up. And you'll see what it is when you get to it.
> 
> NC-18, babies. Takes place (rather obviously) during the episode "Tough Love".

Spike was feeling better, marginally. The minions had fed him: IV bags of blood fresh from the hospital. He wondered if Ben knew his alter-ego was taking advantage of his security clearance so. Not that he cared. Ben was clearly a wanker, a git, and a possible rival for Buffy’s affections, so even if he weren’t the unwitting vessel for a hell-god, Spike would want him dead.

Still, Spike was in relative comfort, propped up on the she-bitch’s own extravagant bed, albeit in chains. The satin sheets felt soothing against his abraded flesh and the good ache and itch of healing was starting to set in.

The door to the apartment impacted on the wall. “Ugh!” Glory threw her purse at the opposite wall. “Another dead end. Another measly non-key! At this rate I’m going to have to suck the brain of every one of those morons. Talk about empty calories.”

“Tough day at the office, your bitchiness?” Spike flexed his arms against the chains that had them attached to the bed posts.

Glory stopped mid-rant and stalked toward him. Hands on hips, she studied him. He tilted his head back in his best ‘enjoying the view?’ leer.

“Arrogance isn’t a good look on the only semi-immortal.” She knelt on the end of the bed, nudging his feet apart to make room for herself.

“Forgive me if I don’t care. You know you’re barking up the wrong tree. Key isn’t any of the Slayer’s mates. I’d know if one of ‘em appeared out of nowhere.”

“You’re more attractive when you shut up,” Glory snarled, pausing to kick off her shoes before crawling up his legs. She planted her fists on either side of his torso. “I’ve had a very bad day, but guess what, Precious? You get to have an even worse night. Murk!”

“Yes, oh magnificence?” Murk appeared instantly, bowling.

Glory ran a finger along Spike’s chest. “Get me some water, a short chain, and my manicure kit.”

“At once. I shall die if I fail.”

Glory rolled her eyes. “It’s on the dresser! Minions!” She dug her fingernail slowly into the flesh between two ribs, then dragged, ripping the skin. “Let’s see where you’re most sensitive, precious.”

Spike arched against his bounds, making small, choked sounds as he tried not to scream.

“Good, good expression. You know, a girl likes to be appreciated when she’s torturing.” She lifted her nails from his skin, tracing lightly now on the sensitive flesh below his arm. “Vampires get goosebumps. Someone should write this down. You know, for posterity.” She scraped the skin very, very gently at first, rousing tickles that were almost unbearable themselves, then passing more firmly, and more, until the skin was pink and pleasure and pain mixed. Spike kept his eyes on the ceiling and his mouth shut, chanting curses silently to himself.

Murk returned and set items reverently in reach of Glorificus. She sat back, the soft georgette of her dress and the firm swell of her rear crushing his thighs as she ran her forefinger along the lip of a drinking glass. “Not talkative tonight, Precious?”

“Rot in hell you sodding bitch.”

“Oh, THAT was original. See if you can guess what happens when a goddess blesses a glass of water?” She held the glass up and kissed it. Rolling it against her cheek she smiled at the worry settling in to Spike’s features. “Want a drink, precious?”

“You’re a hell-god!”

She rolled her eyes. “I’d have thought a VAMPIRE would be a little less prejudiced. Holy is holy, brain trust.” She dipped her finger into the water and flicked a drop at his face.

He flinched in time to keep it from hitting his eye. It sizzled and burned on his cheek. His arms twitched, wanting desperately to wipe it off, to scratch away the burn.

“Yeah, MY day is looking up,” Glory said, and dipping her finger again, began to trace her name across Spike’s chest.

***

“I came as soon as I…” Buffy slowed, coming toward the bed in the Sunnydale hospital emergency ward. Tara stared at her unseeing, then made a face like something bitter was in her mouth and twisted, batting at the air.

“Of course, of course, of course,” Tara said.

“…could,” Buffy finished, and approached tentatively to give Tara a hug. Tara didn’t return it, continuing her mysterious twists and struggles.

Willow was holding Tara’s right hand between both of hers. Her face was tear-streaked. “I wasn’t away from her that long. I shouldn’t have left her alone. I… I turned and SHE was there. I ran, I ran as fast as I could but it was too slow.”

Xander paced the limited space between this bed and the next curtain-wall. “Glory strikes again. And there’s nothing we can do!” He raised his fist as though wanting to punch something. Slowly he forced his hand to open and instead took hold of the IV-stand. “What are we going to do, Buff?” As an after thought, he added, “Who’s watching Dawn?”

“Giles.” Buffy sat on the edge of the bed, reaching to hold Willow’s shoulder. Willow didn’t look away from Tara, but Buffy thought she saw a little tension leave her eyes at the touch. “We’ll find a way to make her better, Willow. We’ll find a way.”

***

“Frizzy-haired cunt,” Spike growled. “Flabby-assed, cheaply dressed, hairy…”

“Nice try, but I’m not going to kill you.” Glory shifted her weight. Spike gasped at the pain, new wounds compressed under silky thighs. She set the cuticle knife back in its slot in the manicure kit and dawdled a bit before picking up the tweezers. Again she shifted, and Spike groaned. She ran her hand over the ruined landscape of his chest. Finding an imbedded piece of glass, she plucked it out. “Anyway, you’re much more entertaining if I ignore the crap that comes out of your mouth.”

Straining back, he nevertheless was able to un-grit his teeth enough to say, “Yeah? You think this is entertaining? You’ve no idea what to do with a man. Frigid harpy.”

She pulled a strip of lacerated skin free and held it up. “Excuse me? Did all that bleach fry your brain?”

Between his teeth he hissed, “I’ve been… tortured better by teenagers.”

Her cold fingernails dug into the flesh between his legs. “You don’t HAVE to stay a man, you know.”

She smiled as Spike writhed in a very rewarding way. He did have an expressive face, and body. It was what a woman really wanted when she tortured someone: feedback. Appreciation.

“Oh most potent and silky-smooth Glorificus…”

“Not now, Jinx!” Glory turned with an extra twist to Spike’s privates. “I’m having ‘me’ time.”

“A thousand apologies, Great and Forgiving Glorificus, but you said to come to you as soon as we found that amulet…”

“Timing!” Glory jumped up. “Jinx, you’re such a good boy! You actually FOUND something I sent you to look for.”

The warty minion ducked his head bashfully. “We will find your key, oh most exfoliated and moisturized…”

Glory smacked him on the forehead. “Amulet?” she held out her hand.

He reverently set it in her palm and backed away, bowing. “We go forth, oh great omnipotent one. We shall search high and low…”

“Yeah, whatever. Get out before your little brain melts.” She swung the amulet on one finger and stepped up onto the bed. Standing astride the vampire who watched her with very appropriate trepidation.

“So, my folliclely-fried blood-sucking menace. I’ve been listening to you ramble on and on for hours and you know it just isn’t attractive.” She dropped her knee into his gut and the vampire gasped, breath forced out of his body as he tried to curl up around the impact. “Let’s see if this shuts you up.” She grabbed a handful of gel-stiffened hair and yanked his head up as far as the bonds would allow before slipping the amulet’s string around his head. “This oughta make you less annoying,” she said, letting him fall back against the pillows.

Spike twisted, trying fruitlessly to nudge the thing off of himself. It was a plain clay disk, though, and sat cool and almost comforting on his ravaged chest.

At first he thought it wasn’t doing anything at all. Maybe vampires were immune? He smirked at the hell-god. “Don’t know what you think giving me presents is going to do, love. I already…. Ah…. FUCK!”

“Aw look, you’re more attractive already.” She ruffled his hair, ripping it roughly up from its gel.

Spike pulled against his bonds, wanting escape, wanting… wanting something. His skin was too tight, all of a sudden and he rubbed against the mattress hoping to loosen it.

Glory laughed deep and lowered herself on her arms and knees, caging his body in as he writhed. “That’s it, precious. Even an undead freak like you can be fun.”

Take it off, he wanted to shout, but he bit his lip. That was how you played the game – you didn’t beg. He felt like he was burning alive. Well, either he was or he wasn’t and it was just an illusion and no sense losing your dignity over…

He choked on a scream as her now cool-feeling hands skated along his sides. He was jerking now, rhythmically in his attempt to dislodge himself, to jump out of his skin, to do… something.

“Just keep that up… and keep that trap shut.” She was sliding down his body. “But I guess we don’t have to worry about THAT anymore, do we?”

He was hard, he realized, and then with a shudder it hit him that was part of the point of the bloody amulet. His blood was so tight in his body he thought he felt his heart beating, and every touch of her cooler flesh was balm to his wounds.

“No,” he managed to strangle out the word between his locked jaw and grinding teeth. “No… bi…”

But he couldn’t finish the word, could only chew a few “ch ch” sounds as she bore down on him, feeling like heaven had opened up and swallowed his prick. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think of it, of her hateful face as curly hair and the rucked-up folds of her dress dragged across his flesh.

“Mm… yeah this is much better. Yeah! Keep bucking up like that.”

He tried to stop his body, but holding still felt like boiling alive.

Glory was riding against him with punishing force, he felt his bones creek and the joints of the bed complain, yet he couldn’t be bothered about it, every cell in his body needing contact, needing motion, like every inch of skin had become cock, somehow, and the tension was built to that unbearable line just before completion, except completion never came.

Not for the hours she rode him, screaming her release with inhuman fury. Nor afterward when she got off, with all the lack of care one would regard a bicycle on dismount she just swung her leg over him, got up, and walked to the bathroom. He was still taught as a garrote, writhing with less force now as the pain in his joints began to intensify, tell him he couldn’t keep struggling against himself like that, but he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t even hold still.

She came back, unknown agonies of time later, all wrapped in a plush pink robe, her hair in a blue turban she sat at the vanity and started riffling through bottles.

“Please,” Spike gasped. He gathered all his strength of will and concentrated on talking. “Please take it off. Take it off.”

“Right, like I’ll do that.” She turned on her vanity stool. “You’re way more useful like this.”

***

“What’s the crisis, Buff? You haven’t said a word since we left the hospital.” Xander shook an open bag of potato chips in her direction as though to lure her from depression.

She sighed and took a handful. “What if we can’t make Tara better?”

“With G-man and Wills on the case? Not gonna happen.” Xander plopped down beside her on the couch and crunched a chip with exaggerated relish.

She knew he was being more cheerful than he felt, for her sake. And for Dawn’s. Dawn had been silent since seeing Tara, locked in her room no doubt thinking it was all her fault.

Buffy didn’t have the energy to contradict her.

“How’s Willow?”

“Busy.” Buffy glanced up as though she could see through the ceiling and check on her friend. “She had to see Tara checked in to the hospital, checked out of the hospital, get her meds, get her settled… now she’s trying to get her to eat something. But when Willow runs out of things to do… I just… don’t know what she’ll do.”

“Hey, Willow’s not going to run off half-cocked. Or even a quarter cocked. She’s Willow. She’s smarter than that.”

“I guess. We talked about it. I think she’s okay.”

Xander sighed and put his arm around Buffy’s shoulders. “At least we know one thing: old fangless actually came through for us.”

Buffy squinted at her friend, confused out of her bleak reverie. “What?”

“Spike. He must not have told Glory who the key was. Otherwise why would Her Scariness attack Tara?”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re telling ME. You know I hate giving the guy credit, but you saw him when we attacked Glory’s apartment-of-hell. He looked pretty bad, Buff. I’m guessing he’s dust by now, and I hate to say it, but I don’t feel as happy as I thought I would. But hey, that’s another problem taken care of, right? No more biteless wonder lusting after you.”

Buffy grimaced. “Great,” she said, and reached for more potato chips.

***

It was getting unbearable. He begged, whenever Glory came back into the bedroom, and so when she straddled his chest and suggested he put his mouth to better use, “And maybe, and this is a big maybe, if you’re half as impressive as you think you are, we’ll talk about taking the amulet off.”

He went to work with greater enthusiasm than he thought possible.

He strained his whole body into the task, lapping at her strange, tan quim. Not as lovely as Dru’s shy little orchid, with its dark tints of purple and delicate, secret petals, this was a vigorous cunt, plump and open.

He hated it. Thought even the flavor was off – bland. A Goddess, he thought bitterly, you are NOT, in this regard.

She gripped the headboard and leaned forward, “Huh… hey you’re reah… really good at this, blondie. I might have to ke…”

She howled as he nipped at her swollen clit, driving herself down against him. Cartilage ground together in his nose as she spent, clenching and spasming against him.

She didn’t stop, not for a long while, and he was almost distracted from the burning in his own skin as she writhed above him, babbling incoherently and then…

Spike watched in stunned fascination as her clit grew before his eyes, glistening and lengthening as her labia fell against each other and sewed shut like a reverse time-lapse of a flower blooming.

He had to turn his face before the dick that was suddenly in front of him poked him in the eye.

A larger, more masculine hand hit the pillow by his face. “Oh my god! Oh no!”

Ben scrambled off the bed, both hands covering his privates.

Spike wanted very desperately to laugh, but all that came out was a weak cough. He was still wriggling in his bonds. “Amulet. Off. Get it off.”

Ben ran from the room.

“Tosser! Git! Pansy! Get back here! Take this bloody thing off of me!” Spike strained with each epithet he threw after the man, his body raising and falling back like the claxon of a bell.

He heard the shower running a long time. He writhed against his bonds. His body felt coated in a thin glaze of drying goddess-spunk. It was only adding to his desire to rip the skin from his body. He heard the chains strain, the tie-points creek and clack as he strained, and knew without looking that his wrists and ankles were bloody messes.

Ben returned dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and grey slacks and a windbreaker besides, like he couldn’t be wearing too much. He had the back of one hand over his mouth the whole way into the room. “Oh god. I can’t believe this. Just… oh my god she’s never done that to me before.”

“Nancy. Ponce. Arse.” Spike hissed between jerks of the chain. “Amulet. Off.”

Ben grabbed the clay disk and yanked hard, breaking the leather thong that tied it around Spike’s neck.

Instantly, the fire went out. Spike collapsed and nearly lost consciousness. His bones and joints awoke in a chorus of groans. He hadn’t noticed so much, before, what he was doing to himself, trying to rip his joints apart to escape.

Ben flung the offending disk at the dresser where it made a satisfying cacophony knocking over little glass vials and jars. “Don’t… just don’t look at me.” Ben snapped, one hand cupped by his eyes to block his view of the naked vampire.

“Sure,” Spike sighed. “Not like I nearly lost an eye to your todger, is it?”

“Damn it,” Ben fumbled with the cuff on Spike’s right wrist. “This is… I can’t live like this.” He flicked the metal at last away.

Spike rolled to reach for his own left wrist. A sliver of bone shown through the chewed mass of his arm. Lovely. “Not like it’s a bleedin’ walk in the park for me,” Spike hissed, his blood-soaked fingers sliding ineffectually, weakly over the metal.

Ben moved to the ankles. “Grab a pair of sweats and get the hell out of here as fast as you can. I never – and boy do I mean this – never want to see a square inch of you again.”

“Mutual. Bugger-fuck these fingers!” Spike balled his fist and hit the cuff. It jarred down his injured bones, but felt better than slipping and sliding once more as his fingers refused to follow his instructions.

He felt the ankle-cuffs go and curled up, brought his knees under himself to get a better angle on the last remaining wrist-cuff.

That’s when Ben said, “Oh no. Oh no, she’s coming back. I…”

Ben changed with one hand reaching toward the wrist-cuff.

Glory frowned down at her hand. “Creepy little toad did it again. Ugh. I can’t wait to be rid of him!” Then she noticed where she was, and more importantly, the not-chained-down state of her vampire. “Hey! The brat was going to set my vampire free!” She backhanded Spike, flinging him out on his back, his arm a tether.

“Jerk. How would he like it if I messed with his things? Not that he has anything interesting. Loser.” She took her time circling the bed – she could, after all. She tossed off the windbreaker with disgust before grabbing Spike’s arm, digging painfully in to the torn flesh.

The door to the apartment slammed open. Willow tossed a duffel on the floor and walked toward them. The ends of her hair rose in unseen static. She glided, now, inches off the floor, her eyes black as she chanted.

Glory dropped Spike’s arm and walked to intercept. “Oh, it’s the lover! How cute!”

“Hold my victim as in tar!” Willow commanded, throwing her hands out at Glory as though casting a net.

Glory wobbled on her feet, suddenly stuck.

“I owe you pain!” Willow said.

Glory screamed as blue lighting flew from Willow’s fingertips and danced over the goddess.

Spike lost no time scrambling back to where he’d been, his left hand skidding ineffectually once, twice on the cuff, fingernails dragging he jammed his thumb into the crack and yanked with all he had.

The cuff snapped and he rolled across the bed, falling on the other side. He looked up to see Glory wrench her feet out of their frozen positions. “That was weak,” she said, and backhanded Willow, sending her flying. “And so are you.”

Spike attempted to stand. “Kill ‘er, Red!” He stumbled and fell against the foot of the bed.

There was a crash, a sound like waves hitting the walls, and then shards of glass and mirror were falling all around like petals in a wind-blown grove.

Spike admonished himself that it was not the time to get poetic and crawled toward the apartment door, flicking what broken glass he could out of his way.

“What’s that, a bag of tricks?”

“Bag of knives,” Willow said, with chill calm.

Spike peeked up just to see the flying cutlery. If he wasn’t in pain, it would be a fun fight to watch. The doorway was finally getting closer.

Buffy ran in it.

Buffy! He almost fell on his face, his arms were quaking with the effort of moving and seeing her…

Willow made a pained gasp. “You know what they used to do to witches?” Glory sounded smug. “They’d crucify them.”

“Yeah?” Buffy grabbed the god’s arm. “They used to bow down to gods, too.” She punched hard.

Glory tossed both girls. Buffy slid through glass-shards just in front of Spike. She spared him a shocked glance before getting back on her feet.

“Thicken!” Willow shouted, throwing her hand toward the god.

Glory’s advance slowed, she moved as though immersed in tar.

Buffy grabbed Spike’s arm and dragged him to his feet. All three ran for the door while Glory howled in defeat behind them.

Spike made it to the top of the stairs, then his legs, wobbling like noodles under him, refused to take another step and he pitched forward, tumbling to the next landing.

He expected the Slayer to leave him, but she snatched him up and over her shoulder without a pause. He felt the jolt of each step, and when they burst into the open air, he passed out.

***

Spike awoke swathed in white. He held up his hands and found them guaze-covered. His whole body itched. He looked around. He was in the Slayer’s living room, on her couch. A crocheted afghan covered the lower half of his body, his toes poking out the bottom, oddly undamaged in all that had befallen the rest of him.

The slayer leaned forward. She was seated on the coffee table. “You’re awake. Here, drink this.” She took his hand and pressed a mug into it. “Sit up if you can. We didn’t have straws.”

He shifted and hefted himself with his elbows on the couch-arm behind him until he was upright enough to drink the mug of blood.

His first meal in days. It hit his stomach like it was a bottomless pit, awakening hunger all around it. He gasped and held the empty mug out. “More?”

The slayer nodded and took the mug, returning with it full again.

When he’d drained two more mugs, he sighed and leaned back into the couch-cushions. “You saved me,” he said. “Can’t believe you saved me.”

“Technically,” Buffy said, “I was there to save Willow.” She put her hand over his bandaged arm. “But I’m not sad we got you too. You protected Dawn. You didn’t tell Glory, even when she… she hurt you.”

“Couldn’t hurt you like that. Couldn’t risk the niblet. Wouldn’t bear it.”

“Thank you,” she said, and leaned forward, placing a small, chaste kiss on his cracked lips.

He stared at her, hardly believing his luck, agony and all, to have received such grace.

Buffy slipped off the coffee table and onto the floor, her head resting against his arm. He reached, petting her hair through the gauze on his hand, and she let him.

He sighed and together they drifted off to sleep.


End file.
